


i am one (but you are a million)

by AltanHal



Category: Naruto
Genre: Alternate Universe, Alternate Universe - Reincarnation, Alternate Universe - Soulmates, Everything is Beautiful and Everything Hurts, F/M, Friendship, Guardian-Ward Relationship, Inspired by FFXIII-2, No Smut, Reincarnation, Soulmates, Work In Progress
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-01-23
Updated: 2019-01-23
Packaged: 2019-10-14 23:12:04
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,235
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17517623
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/AltanHal/pseuds/AltanHal
Summary: He lives forever. She lives to die. It's a cycle he will never get used to as long as Kaguya's plague beats in his chest.---Cursed with immortality, Kakashi serves and protects Sakura in every single one of her lives. She is Kaguya made human, reborn again and again to erase the plague. The same plague that consumes lives to give Kakashi his eternal one.





	i am one (but you are a million)

**Author's Note:**

> This is inspired by Caius and Yeul's (from FFXIII-2) Guardian/Ward relationship where Caius is immortal and protects the Yeul reincarnations. I added some vague FFXV lore too.
> 
> The cover arts are from Lilly（旧マル子） from Pixiv.

**_First_ **

He is a warrior first, a man second.

For a plague had killed his wife right after he married her. She wasn't the only one inflicted by the disease because only he was left alive in their small village. It was a miracle and a curse. He didn't want to live without her.

But their Goddess had a plan for him it seems; he is alive because of a little girl. She healed him and she did it when she is six, _only_ six. Her name is Sakura, all pink hair and green eyes. He wanted to weep at the sight of her. His wife in a small girl. _Kaguya-sama you've blessed us._

But she isn't the same, this he learned. The same face and nothing more.

"I am Sakura. I am the cure." She told him and that's when he knew, she is the healer of not only him, but of this world.

The plague of the stars was the Goddess's lethal dose. The poison she crafted to kill humanity. And she had given him eternal life, her _heart_ beats in his chest. For as long as he is alive, she too will send forth the plague.

"I am Kakashi. My purpose is to protect you until the last of you dies." Because Sakura will succumb to the plague soon, with every person she cures, death shines brighter in her sea glass eyes, consuming her until she is all but alive.

 

**_Second_ **

The second time he meets her she's holding onto the body of a drenched blonde boy. Her shoulders are shaking and she's got fat tears and snot dripping down her chin. 

"Sakura?" The name isn't foreign on his tongue even though he's only met her once. Twice now as she seeks his eyes.

"He's dead!" She shrieks and clutches the blonde boy tighter. "I'll kill him!"

It's not the plague that claimed the boy's life. It's murder because he drowned right under another boy's hand.

"I'll be your friend now. Don't cry Sakura." He tries to console her but she doesn't let the blonde boy go.

"I'll kill Sasuke." She says and he shakes his head. Little girls aren't supposed to be murderers.

"How old are you anyway?"

"Nine."

"Only nine?"

She nods and he feels a weight dropping on his chest.

"Four more years." He says plainly.

_Before you die again._

 

**_Third_ **

He'd never seen a baby not wailing before.

Someone left a crib on his front door with a hastily written _please, they'll kill her_  on a piece of paper. He peeks in the basket to find that shock of pink tuff and sea glass.

She is a month old, _only_ a month old, and she's the first one he raised. The _only_ one because he knows he'll never have a child as long as Sakura keeps living. The goddess is cruel like that but he accepts their fate nonetheless.

 

**_Fourth_ **

He thinks it doesn't look right when he sees her in a voluminous _miko hakama_. The head shrine priestess they call her, because she's the best at drawing out the plague from a dying soul.

He doesn't get tired standing watch of her through her days as she heals and heals with a line that is as long as the roads in the village. She gets tired with every passing moon and he knows this because she's nearing _that_ age. Thirteen, _only_ thirteen, wherein she slumps forward on the shrine floors but he catches her before she hits the mahogany that's polished of blood and sickness.

It's the fourth smile he sees on her cold face and never the blur that's always in his eyes in moments like this.

 

**_Fifth_ **

The thing about being immortal was that he stays absolutely the same. But his silver hair is _ancient_  she says. It grows so long he has to tie it into a ponytail. She likes braiding it and he lets her because she's twelve, _only_ twelve. And girls her age are about beauty and small things, so he lets her. She'll die next year after all.

 

**_Sixth_ **

"Sakura, I thought I said no pets."

"Naruto's not a pet!"

"You named it?"

"Naruto. And he's _not_ a pet!"

Sakura stands at four feet and three inches but the set of her shoulders are threatening; he doubts that she's seven, _only_ seven with that stance. He eyes the creature hiding behind her impressive display, and is more surprised of the animal's-- _boy's_ \--blonde hair and diamond blue eyes than the nine orange tails he's trying desperately to hide.

" _Kitsune_." He mutters breathlessly, and remembers in vivid detail the drowned blonde boy in her arms.

Is Kaguya sending gifts now?

 

**_Seventh_ **

She's thirteen, _only_ thirteen when she remembers her short lives and his same face.

She's the first of her seven lives that remember.

He hears her laugh at the cruelty of their fate. 

 

**_Eighth_ **

She's crying when she gets back to their tiny tree house, forehead and sea glass eyes hidden beneath unevenly cut short hair. He rushes to her side when he sees the small cut on her cheek.

Who dared hurt the healer of this world?

"What happened?" He asks and she sniffles softly to herself.

"Ino said my pink hair is a curse."

 _You're a gift to this world._ "You're not cursed."

"She cut it."

He balls his fist in rage but outwardly, he stays calm. With a sigh, he straightens himself and walks to sit at the table. Grabbing a pair of scissors, he beckons her.

"Come, I'll give you a cute haircut fit for cute six year olds."

She stops crying, her eyes lighting up in that way he knows how he's spoiled this Sakura.

"Cuter than Ino-pig's?"

"The cutest!"

 

**_Ninth_ **

When he meets her he is speechless. Her hair is longer than _his_. He's been growing his for longer than this Sakura is alive but hers is ridiculously  _longer_. He doesn't understand how it happened because she's four, _only_ four, and he's well over a hundred now.

 

**_Tenth_ **

By the tenth time he meets her, he is convinced that every Sakura is unique but is still the same old soul. That same soul that is tethered to his, driving a knife in his very being between the years of the last death and the next life.

 

**_Eleventh_ **

Oranges are her favorite while tomatoes are her least favorite, this he learns. He wonders if this is a foreshadowing of some sort, of her future lives. He hopes it isn't sour of any sort but he knows each of her lives will inevitably be in that taste one way or another. He could only hope.

 

**_Twelfth_ **

She came to him covered in dirt and blood. Dressed in rags and pink hair a horrible shade of brown and carnation. A group of men came bounding from where she came. Laughing and _leering,_ and there was nothing more he desired than to rip out their eyes and cut each of their fingers off.

He's never murdered for her before but it took a hundred years for him to do so. He left the bodies to rot and gave her his coat and boots.

"How old are you?" He asks this time because this is the first time he's met her older than thirteen, the age she usually dies by the plague.

"Sixteen." _Only_ Sixteen.

Kaguya is teasing him.

 

**_Forty-eighth_ **

He was given three students to teach the arts of the shinobi. A blonde boy, terribly and wonderfully blonde as the rays of sunshine. Another boy with hair the color of the night sky when the moon is neither silver nor red. He teaches them. Far more interested in their little competitions than his third one.

She doesn't fit with either boy but she seems to think that the two of them match, all light and scattered colors of spring and fall. She is twelve, _only_ twelve but she believes she'll be a good shinobi. One who he'll fear one day, she says. It is comical but Kakashi smiles kindly at her. He doesn't believe her. How could he? When all she cares about is her long soft hair of cherry blossoms instead of the smell of blood that's forever stuck on her palms.

She seems to think--this one likes to think, he notes--that love would be her constant strength.

But he knew better.

The day the next clan village raided their small one was the day this Sakura's first friend fell. The blonde boy was the Sun made human. Morning was killed that day and thus, the world was plunged in eternal night.

The dark haired boy was her only friend then. He did not teach nor approach her. He grew tired of her chasing that boy. But he protected her from a distance. He never could protect her from each death because the plague won her over for the forty-eighth time.

 

**_Sixty-second_ **

It seems that with the absence of the sun 26 incarnations ago, the plague became more selfish and hungry. Two thirds of the world had been wiped out already, only two million remain. This Sakura died healing over a million. The most she did in any of her lives combined. And she died at nine, _only_ nine. This Sakura is the one most loved by the people.

 

**_Ninety-ninth_ **

The first time she asks about her past selves, she cuts her long bubblegum hair short of her ears. It's the shortest he's seen her wear her hair and it's a breath of fresh air for his already weary soul.

"Do I always have hair down to my butt?" She is fourteen, _only_ fourteen and he laughs because she's never used the word butt before. This Sakura is one of his favorites--but then again he has ninety-nine favorites.

 

**_One-hundredth_ **

The next death isn't any kinder than the rest.

She's three, _only_ three, born with weak lungs. She had only saved this life's parents when the plague had claimed her for the hundredth time. This was the youngest he'd seen her die.

 

**_216 th_ **

Night still reigns, sunlight is yet to return, but under the silver moon, he watches her murder the boy with hair that blends with the night sky. She is fifteen, _only_ fifteen when she does the opposite of why she's always born.

"Just this once." She tells him and promises to heal a hundred the next day in repentance for this sin.

He helps her bury the body, shoveling dirt on the boy's pretty face. The warmth of something long forgotten caresses the skin of his forehead when he finishes with the crime. The sun rises from the horizon as she grins at him through the blood on her face.

"It's done. It's finally done." She says and he looks at her curiously. "Sasuke killed Naruto. I sacrificed him to appease Minato the Sun God."

 

**_330 th_ **

His hair has gotten longer than his whole length. It feels like being reborn when she offered to cut it all off. He thinks that this must be how Sakura feels when her soul restarts at age one, _always_ one. But despite the lack of weight on his head, he knows he'll never truly get the one in his ribs off.

 

**_395 th_ **

She's back to dying at thirteen again, _only_ thirteen, and he's getting tired of seeing her smile on her death bed.

 

**_477 th_ **

"Kakashi. How old are you now?"

"I don't know. How old are _you_?"

"Come on, Kakashi."

"Twenty-three."

"Six thousand then."

"I _had_  silver hair since the day of my birth, excuse you."

"I remember."

"What?"

"I remember it. The first time I met you."

". . .you were six."

"Yes, and it's been 5,977 years."

"Good at math, congratulations!"

"Whatever. That means I'm 5,983 years old."

He scoffs. "You're eleven, _only_  eleven."

 

**_501 st_ **

He's lost count how many times he's seen her cry when she couldn't save a soul from the plague. Although it is a hundred thousand times less than how many she heals, she grieves nonetheless.

 

**_627 th_ **

She tried to braid his hair again, this time though, he refuses. She's seventeen _, only_ seventeen and she is a child in his eyes even with the way her waist dips only to swell to a very inviting hip. He must keep her away from him, keep his hands to himself.

 

**_783 rd_ **

He hates how she's growing up and dying at seventeen now. Though he never fails to meet her at eleven, _only_ eleven. 

 

**_888 th_ **

She promises to marry him one day and she said this on the precipice of death. Promises him this one last thing, but he couldn't answer because if in the next life she doesn't remember about this, then he can't hold her to her promise. She's seven, _only_ seven after all and seven year old girls are not supposed to get married yet.

 

**_959 th_ **

"Why do you always say that?" She asks, looking straight at him.

"Say what?"

"I'm _only_ whatever age I was." She furrows her brows at him. Pink and slender arching on a forehead too big but she's beautiful still.

He sighs, shaking his head, refusing to meet her gaze. _Because you're always too young._

 

**_1000 th_ **

He doesn't say it out loud nor ask what her age is. He can't have her asking the same question again. But despite this, he knows she dies at seventeen in this life.

And never fails to do so in the next lives.

 

**_1,287 th_ **

This Sakura is different, he could feel it. She's still fluffy haired and chubby cheeked but there's something absolutely _different_  about her.

"What do I look like to you?" She asks cheekily and he frowns, refusing to answer. "Hey, Kakashi."

He ignores her in favor of staring at the diamond on her forehead. It's new. He's never seen it on her before. It must be some kind of sigil that she's wearing to appease the people who believe she's some sort of goddess in the body of a child. She's the 1,287th rebirth and he's inclined to believe it.

"Tell me, 'Kashi." This Sakura has given him a nickname.

He's amused but he doesn't show it.

"You're eight." He tells her as he pokes the diamond roughly.

She glares at him through big sea glass eyes, and it makes him pause, heart sinking in his gut. A child's eyes but it doesn't belong.

It's like seeing through a mirror. The thousands of years he's lived condensed in her eyes on a face of a cherub.

"You're eight." He repeats, breathless and an ache blooming in his chest. " _Only_ eight."

She scoffs at him. "There you go again." She frowns and crosses her little arms on her chest. She notices the look of despair on his immaculate masked face and her own softens into melancholy.

"I'm sorry I ruined this." She says and holds his hand. He doesn't respond, only closes his eyes.

He doesn't want to hear her say it. Not when she looks so young, so young like a rose still without its thorns; so young and enough to be his daughter. He despises himself when he thinks like that.

"I'm eighteen." She says quietly. " _Finally_ eighteen."

Kakashi cries but he doesn't show it. _But why do you look eight?_

 

**_1,580 th_ **

He doesn't understand why she dies at eighteen now. Kaguya's plague beats hard and _alive_ in his chest as a reminder that she will always _die_. He's too heartbroken to piece the clues together.

 

**_1,999 th_ **

If he keeps counting, every death after would just be a passing. Just that, a passing. Because he would look forward to seeing her again and again. But with each last breathe she takes, she keeps in her death bed an infinite percent of his soul.

 

**_2000 th_ **

"So, Kakashi. Which is faster? The speed of light or Minato the Flying Thunder God?"

"Hm?"

"You know, the superhero in the new comic book you bought me?"

"Oh, that."

"So, which is it?"

"Naruto."

"Who?"

"Nothing, Sakura-chan!"

 

**_2222 th_ **

Tears have dried from his eyes now. He's become hardened with each smile on her last moments. The blur in his eyes has turned to diamonds, hard and yet beautiful still. Exactly what he is, a hard long life with a beauty always slipping between his fingers.

 

**_2650 th_ **

He is reminded again that she is not a child when this Sakura walks all over their apartment in nothing but her plain white school girl panties. She doesn't care if he sees because she remembers all the times he's seen her naked when she was under sixteen. There wasn't any kind of desire in his eyes only the exhaustion of seeing her nude and bloodied for the three hundredth or so time.

The red of her blood flashing in his eyes at the memory but this time she sees something different. He looks boldly at her and she doesn't flinch. Removing her last piece of clothing, she stands before him, unashamed.

"Is this the first time you're seeing me?" She asks with a roguish smile and he just stares at her, dark and brooding, piercing yet nervous.

"I've seen you many times."

"But I was just a child."

"Yes you were."

"How old am I now, Kakashi?”

“Twenty.”

Sakura cheekily smiles at him, as if she's won a bet against him, and brings her arms to wrap around his neck. She’s so close to him that her breathe fans on his chin. Even though she’s reached this age in this life she’s still much smaller than him. It amuses him. He can feel her breasts pressing onto him and his hands twitch at his sides. Seemingly limp but it’s buzzing with restraint.

“I have a favor.” She whispers and lifts herself on her toes. The ghost of her lips just a hairsbreadth from his own.

“Hm?” He hums, unable to open his mouth, afraid that the space between them could close with the movement.

She quirks her lips in a lopsided smirk and he has to close his eyes to deny himself this game she has. How could he, an immortal, let her, a mere twenty year old, toy with him? And the truth of his answer is _because it’s her_.

“Kiss me.” She says and he trembles, opening his eyes to meet her sea glass. She’s so painfully beautiful and it takes him a while before he responds.

He kisses her. Just that gentle tap of a kiss. And then he runs.

The next morning, she dies at 21.

 

**_3000 th_ **

He's tired. So tired.

Of watching her, guarding her, standing vigil over her, standing still beside her, protecting her on her death bed. He can stop it. The only way it ends is if the plague in his chest stops beating. He figured it out after all.

He is just so, so tired. But he doesn't want it to end. He'll have her kill him instead of driving that shattered rusty sword of his long dead clan into his heart. He knows she will never. So he lives and she lives. He remembers each life and death. Sometimes she does too but consistently, in every life, she loves him in all forms.

And that's where he never fails; he loves her too.

 

**Author's Note:**

> This is tagged as complete even though it's open ended. I plan to extend this but I don't know how I'll end this yet. I have a vague idea of how but I still can't form it in my head.
> 
> Thank you for reading! Kudos if you liked it and tell me what you think please!


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